


Adsum

by eldritcher



Series: The Heralds of Dusk [16]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:52:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4010071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps Maglor should have known, so long ago, that some sacrifices weren't his to deny. Perhaps the Gods should have known, so long ago, that he stood hallowed by white fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adsum

“What are you looking at?” I asked my elder brother when my chubby, young legs had finally carried me to top of the highest tower of Tirion where stood he alone.

He did not reply. He did not deign to look down at my panting form. I feared that I had earned his displeasure by following him there. He would gently, but firmly see me off to bed when he saw me trailing him at times I was supposed to have retired. This was one of those times. I waited gloomily for his chastisement. He was never harsh. Even so, I would have rather taken a good thrashing from him instead of forcing myself to meet the quiet disappointment in those quicksilver eyes.

Even as I waited for the inevitable expression of my brother’s disapproval, a chuckle broke the silence and the next thing I knew was the strength in his warm arms as he lifted me up. I tucked my head under his neck, making sure that my right ear was flush against the veins of his throat so that I could feel the dance of the life under his skin, and thus satisfied, I looked out. Tyelperion’s light was waning and the city was washed a quiet hue of grey. I could see the white dome of Grandfather’s palace shining softly in the radiance. I could see the waves in the bay adorned by silver-freckled foam. 

“Do you like silver?” I asked him.

“I care not for it,” he replied. “Why? Since when did you start being interested in metals?”

“Oh, I know nothing about Father’s metals,” I mumbled sleepily as I looked into his eyes and held the gaze. “I like silver.”

His voice held a depth of amusement warring with affection when he replied, “My dearest Macalaurë. Whatever would I do when you shift your attentions to our younger brother who comes soon?”

That sparked a disturbing thought in my mind. What if he decided to shift his attentions to this new brother? I frowned. Nolofinwë had told me that new children were brought at the intermingling of lights by the vassals of Ulmo. How did one go about finding these vassals and telling them, clearly, that no new children were required in our house? Would they listen to someone as young as I was? Could they be bribed with pebbles? 

“What is it?” my brother asked.

I did not reply, deep in my meanderings as I was. Before us, the lights were intermingling, as Laurelin began spreading its radiance.

“Macalaurë?” he enquired again, grasping my chin and looking at me with deep concern.

Before I knew it, I had thrown my arms about his neck and pressed my nose against the veins in his throat, and I was saying, “Mine. If the new brother needs a brother, he must ask Ulmo for one. I shan’t give mine.”

How my brother reacted to my childish declaration of possession was something that I could never forget. He pried my hands off his neck, set me down on my feet, knelt before me and then sat on his haunches so that we were face-to-face. I did not avert my eyes, though I shifted nervously from foot to foot. He took my hands in his own, and kissed my forehead, and everywhere was a peculiar tint formed by the mixture of colours, silver and gold. 

“What were you looking at, earlier?” I asked.

“The waters,” he answered rather absently, his eyes distant. “The waters rise.”

I tugged at his hand and shook my head to convey that I had not understood. 

“It grows late,” he said briskly. “Come now, we should be going back to the palace.”

As we walked past the statue of our grandmother, with him holding my hand, he looked up abruptly and then whispered words, in a cadence I had never heard leaving his lips before, and I was unnerved to find his fingers trembling in mine.

“Earlier lives drift by on silver soles, and the shadows of the damned descend into these sighing waters.”

 

She was beautiful. She was brilliant. But it was not those attributes that won her a place in my heart. 

We were at a large gathering of the ruling elite. I had grown weary of being forced to sing by the elders. My brother had not yet arrived to extricate me from their claws. Even as I gritted my teeth and waited for him, she came. Thick curls of gold were escaping the ridiculous silk bonnet she had on. 

“My father picked it,” she explained. “I like him. So I will bear it.”

I nodded. I understood. I loathed green. But my brother had obtained me a dark shade of that colour and I would have died rather than not wearing it to please him. 

“Silk, ermine and faces full of port wine,” she muttered under her breath as we watched the carousing crowds. 

Lively blue eyes were glaring at the revellers and I could not help starting to like her. It began, and continued in spurts until that fateful day when she came to me to do away with her maidenhead. 

She had intended it as a solitary event, I daresay. But I made it more, for I wanted her and truly loved her. We decided to forego procreation since neither of us was enamoured by the idea of offspring. We were as chords chasing each other on the same harmonic, ever seeking and grasping and knowing. 

Our family called it the union of the intellectuals. It was simpler than that. I sought to please my brother and she sought to please her father. We understood each other and with that understanding came the sort of deep, abiding affection which stood untarnished by time’s passage. 

We would often ride through the streets of Tirion, delighting in the admiring glances and hushed whispers we garnered from the frequenters of the city thoroughfare. It was during one such time, as she came abreast and then overtook me, I noticed her fingers trembling on the reins of her mount. I called to her in alarm as the reins slipped away. The steed showed sense and slowly trotted until I could draw ahead and support her form. 

“Artanis?” I shook her, worried. “Artanis?”

Her eyes were cold blue and her palms were dilated as she brought them to my cheeks. 

“Artanis?” I entreated. The clouds shifted and a shadow fell upon her.

“The silver swan, who, living had no note, when death approached unlocked her silent throat,” said she harshly, her voice a far throw from its usual tones. 

I kissed her brow and murmured, “It is the most inopportune time to exhibit your knowledge of esoteric poetry. Are you well?” 

She frowned and her eyes turned warmer. In the most perplexed manner, she asked me what had happened. I was frightened, but I assured her it was nothing and convinced her to ride on. As she complied, I looked up at the statue the shadow of which had fallen upon her.

 

When we travelled to Formenos, Grandfather came with us. He insisted that the statue that had graced the city square of Tirion be brought to the large terrace of Formenos. 

“Why?”

My brother frowned at me. 

“Why must we move the statue?” I asked. “Would it not be simpler to sculpt a new one?”

“That statue was made by Father,” he said tersely.

“He can make another then,” I said, exasperated. “Why must we move this one?”

“Think, Macalaurë, think. Father had no memories of her. How then did he sculpt that statue? He was given memories.”

“What?” I asked, befuddled as I often was when my brother began his elliptical reasoning.

“Who can gift memories?” he asked quietly.

“He who gives us dreams,” spoke Artanis in a hushed voice as she rose from the bowseat to join us. 

“More than dreams and memories can be woven,” murmured my brother before he left us abruptly.

I stared at Artanis. Her eyes were agleam and their depths murky, turning them a peculiar shade of greying blue. 

 

Tending him after the rescue was nigh impossible for one man alone. I was reluctant to let others see the marred flesh and the hollow eyes. But there was no choice. Artanis would cleanse and wash him while Findaráto and I held him down. Preserving his modesty was not a concern given his incoherent state. 

Then came a moment of lucidity in the middle of an ablution and he frowned as Artanis ran a wet cloth over his skin.

“Shall I send her out?” I asked him, ever wanting to spare him what I could.

He shook his head and gouged a wan smile from nowhere. He trusted her. Later, many years later, I would come to know that she trusted him where she had not trusted even I who had been her closest confidant. 

There were nights when I awoke abruptly and rushed to his tent to find him hyperventilating. I would gather him in my arms and speak nonsensical words of endearment, and weep, and sing, until he fell into exhausted sleep. But before he surrendered into the grip of slumber, he would force energy enough to grace me with three whispered words that proved the only balm I had ever needed.

“I am here.”

 

“He is trying to spare you,” Artanis told me when she saw my miserable form standing vigil by Findekáno’s tent.

“Cannot I do what Findekáno can?” I whispered as I watched the shadows of depravity silhouetted against the tent cloth.

My brother was quiet. Always. Only when he was engaged in intimate activities with Findekáno had I heard him shout and plead. 

“Come away,” Tyelko said uneasily, once when I had been lingering in the shadows to keep my vigil over my elder brother.

“What is our cousin doing to him?” I clasped his forearm and begged. “Please, I must know.”

Tyelko was orthodox, but he had always tried to keep a guardian’s eye on me. He sighed and tugged at me until I followed him away from the charnel-pot of drink and depravity my brother and cousin had brewed. 

“You are married,” Tyelko told me. “It is no longer your concern, Macalaurë.”

“He is my brother and I have every right to be concerned.”

“He needs it,” Tyelko said softly, his handsome features darkening in the moonlight. “I cannot understand it and I will never stop trying to make him cease, mind you. But he needs it. Let him have it then, Macalaurë. Leave him to it.”

I nodded and wrested my hand free of his hold before striding to my chambers. There lay in repose the woman I had married and had sworn fidelity to. A cold wind blew and she shifted in discomfort. I sighed and extricated a coverlet from the wardrobe before tucking it in about her. I knew I could not find peace there, watching her innocent features relax into the grip of soothing dreams. 

I stepped out of the chamber and closed the door gently behind me. Then I gasped in horror as I saw my elder brother at the entrance of the corridor. His chambers were a few doors away from mine, but we had never run into each other following my marriage. I would leave the next day, and had been wondering however I would manage to take leave of him without resorting to bitter words.

We stared at each other for a long while before he finally shook himself as if from a trance. I stayed where I was, my nose crinkling at the smell of semen and ale that pervaded the air.

“Insanity,” I cursed as the stench overwhelmed me.

His eyes were bloodshot, a far cry from the serene grey pools I had written secret odes to. They focussed themselves with difficulty upon me and his lips quirked in the most ghastly parody of a smile.

“Need,” he enunciated slowly.

“Why?” I caught his shoulders and shook him. “Why do you need it?”

“Have you any idea what it involves?” he asked me, amusement creeping into his ragged voice.

I pursed my lips. He knew well that I had no inkling of what it involved. Was he referring to this need of his? Was he referring to his mental state? I had no inkling of what either involved. 

“I cannot blame you,” he conceded. “Not all needs are grounded in reason.”

“Cease these circles, Russandol,” I whispered. “I cannot bear to see you thus. Nothing is worth your--” I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“Abasement?” He filled the gap as he always had.

I did not reply. 

“Speaking of needs,” he continued with the particular care that a drunken man accords his words. “Do you think that any of your needs might be met by taking advantage of this current state of abasement I am inclined to favour?”

I stared at him, wondering if there was somewhere within him the man I loved and revered. For he stood before me was not, could not be my brother.

“I am weary, I admit,” he was saying, “and had intended to retire. But since you will be leaving tomorrow, and since I may not see you again, I suppose I am not averse to delaying my rest awhile. You desire me, do you not?”

“Russandol,” I began in a trembling voice.

“You want me.” He said that with no inflection of emotion. “Let us not waste time on these sentimental proclamations that bards see fit to dispense at a moment’s notice.”

“Russandol,” I said, anger taking me whole.

He did not relent. “I have an oath that binds me to passivity. Pity, since I imagine that claiming a brother who worshipped you once would have been an interesting interlude. We shall make do. I am not particularly choosy, after all, as Findekáno can tell you.”

“You are not yourself,” I said slowly, watching the beloved silver fade away into darkening grey. 

We were close now, and I could feel the alcohol on his breath. I loved him, deeply and desperately. But never once had I imagined the carnality that such a love might provoke. Now, with his form hovering over mine, with his senses having fled leaving drunken madness, and with his body reeking of whatever had transpired with our cousin, I was, for the first time, faced with the sordidness of what that love might entail. 

“Tell me, Macalaurë,” he whispered, “how many times have you exploited my bedridden state? It must have been fortune unlooked for, was it?”

I shoved him away then, with all the raw energy I could summon. Without waiting to see if he made it to his chambers, I entered my own and bolted the door. Then I cursed and wept. 

“My prince!” 

The poor woman I sinned against in my heart looked up at me, her sleepy features roused to worry.

“Will you send that title to damnation?” I rasped through my hoarse sobs.

She did not reply, instead coming to sit by my side. Together we remained until dawn, braced against the door, her quiet presence striving to balm my wretchedness. 

There was a formal parting ceremony. My elder brother came, looking none the worse for his yesterday’s ventures. He smiled at me; that usual, fond, lingering smile reserved for me. 

I made my way to Findekáno and demanded, “Did Russandol drink heavily yesterday?”

He fixed me with an assessing look before saying dourly, “Not as much as he needed to.”

The word need would be my undoing, I bitterly reflected. 

“You leave today,” Findekáno continued. “Have you wondered how he would cope?”

“He has you,” I said coldly. “I cannot see why he needs anyone else.”

“Then you see not.”

 

The sun rose and fell, and rose and fell again, and the dragon drove me to Himring. The toll of the journey and the gore I had seen gave me nightmares. I soldiered on, trying to conceal them until they passed. 

Then I saw the dragon in my dream, and I felt sorcery being wound tight over my mind. I flailed and shouted and it was all in vain. I was being drawn closer and closer to the dragon’s hypnotic gaze. I closed my eyes and a voice irresistible bade me open them. The next thing I knew, I was staring into the worried silver irises of my brother.

“What are you doing here?” I asked numbly.

“You called my name,” he said. “Do you wish to speak of it?”

It was a tentative offer to heal the breach between us. Then I remembered the cruel words of accusation he had flung at me that day.

“No.”

He seemed to have expected that answer, for he nodded and said, “If you should reconsider, I am here.”

 

My brother was a man who valued his privacy highly. While I was curious to know what dealings had he with the men of Marach, to ask him outright would have been construed as a breach of that privacy he held dear. I knew it was no alliance that he had with them. It was something else. 

We were walking together, he and I, when came to us Uldor. 

“We entertain no alliance with the Easterlings,” said my brother.

“I have been charged by my father to bring you a worthy gift,” Uldor replied suavely. 

My brother frowned, then stepped forward to receive the casket Uldor presented. He opened it and his face paled before he hastily closed it. With a nervous glance at me, he cleared his throat and invited Uldor to speak with him in his study.

I valued my brother’s privacy. More than that, I valued him. So I felt no twinge of conscience when I snuck into his chambers at the dead of night and found the casket on the bedside table. It was as I had suspected. 

“Why must you?” I cursed. 

“I am here,” he said softly, turning to face me, his features alert and untainted by sleep. 

“How much have you taken?” I asked angrily. “Enough to kill your senses?” 

He smiled and sat up before saying, “I have not indulged in it. I will save it for the battlefields, Macalaurë. I shall need it then.”

“This is suicide,” I whispered, trying to muster my voice to a semblance of courage.

“Corpses are absolved of suicide.”

“Russandol!”

He was watching me warily. I remembered the kiss we had shared earlier before Atarinkë had interrupted us. He had been alive then, alive and desperate.

“War comes,” he said quietly. “If I fell-”

“You shall not fall.” A command, a plea and a prayer all contained in those words.

His face was a study in wistfulness. I could not bear to look upon him. I turned heel and strode out of the chamber.

 

Artanis rode to Himring before the war. I was surprised by her stamina to undertake such a journey alone. Courage she had, that was indisputable. Yet, how had she found the physical strength?

I remembered the distance in her once lively blue eyes. I remembered the veins standing prominent against the fairness of her throat. I remembered the fanaticism contained in her harsh voice.

“All needs are not rooted in reason,” said my brother when he saw me poring over scrolls of herbal lore of the Easterlings.

I stared at him. Those eyes were calm silver. His gait was assured and his tones precise. 

“Perhaps it was rooted in reason,” I murmured.

He smiled at that and I leant over to press a kiss on his brow. He emitted a quiet sigh and sat upon the edge of the bow seat, and then he shifted about until he lay with his head nestled upon my lap. My fingers, of their own accord, came to his hair. 

“You do realise that our brothers will find out what transpired last night,” he whispered. “Tyelko will not be pleased.”

“Atarinkë knows,” I told him. “Tyelko will not be pleased. But I am sure he will not grudge it to us in the long run.”

“The long run?” he asked teasingly.

“Quite a long run, if I am to have my way with it.”

 

I wondered what had driven them to the draughts. Was it the lonely burden of foresight they were cursed with? Was it despair? Was it fear? What had turned them addicted to these mind-numbing concoctions of the Easterlings?

But they were here. Flawed, but present.

 

Before the massacre in Doriath, Círdan had come to me and sought a private meeting.

“What is it?” I asked him, none too pleased, for my brother and I were not on speaking terms and Círdan had taken advantage of that fact too well. 

He fixed me with a pitying look before saying, “Prince, you cannot let him enter a fray again. His reflexes are not what they once were.”

I did not heed him. Even if I had, I doubted that my brother would listen to me. But during the massacre in Doriath, I realised in rising horror that Círdan had been right. My brother fought with his customary recklessness, but his parries and thrusts were weaker than they used to be.

“He seems unwell,” I told Artanis.

She did not look well, I noticed. Gone were the life from her eyes and the lustre from her hair. There was coldness setting in and determination carving her hollow. 

She came to rest her head on my shoulder and whispered, “You knew it. You knew all along that a day would come when you have no choice but to let him fall.”

“I will fall with him,” I swore, trying to stave off the burning liquid in my eyes that was threatening to undo my composure. 

She stepped back and stared at the portrait of her husband. Then she murmured, “Some are not destined to fall. They must live and remember.”

 

There had been a skirmish. Elros had come to me telling tales, embellished perhaps, of my brother’s recklessness in battle. 

“And his hands swung the sword-”

“Hand.” I glared at the young storyteller. “The last time I saw him, he had only one.”

He grinned. 

“You will be the death of me,” I muttered.

“Ada,” he began, more solemn now. “His sword falters and he tires easily. He must stop riding with the warriors or he must curb his recklessness.”

 

Later that night, when I was with my brother, I breached the matter cautiously.

“The draughts, you have stopped them altogether. Are they not necessary now?”

He continued playing with my fingers while replying thoughtfully, “I met Thalion some years ago. He seemed to think that my constitution could not stand to be taxed by those plant derivatives I had been dependent on.”

“But your health,” I began fearfully.

He threw a leg over my thighs and edged closer so that our lips were brushing. Then he whispered, “A foregone conclusion.”

The ease with which those words escaped him was my undoing. I clutched his throat and forced him into a kiss, toppling him off me so that he was on his stomach. I straddled him, burying my face in the rich crimson of his hair, pushing down my fingers against the pulse throbbing in his throat, and I was drowning in the moan that was dredged up from his diaphragm and all the way till it escaped him in a breathy exhalation. I did not relent. For once, I let the beast have me. I clutched and grasped, and kissed and tasted, and marked, every inch of his skin that was on display before me. 

He did not endeavour to stop me. He did not even breathe a word of protest when I suckled at those new scars from the latest skirmish. He let go, allowing me to take at whim, allowing me to worship and desecrate him, allowing me to curse and weep over every mar and wound. 

When I had finally exhausted myself past word and action, he gingerly turned and then drew me upon him. A kiss graced my forehead and a rapidly fluttering heartbeat sung against my skin. Later, after he had fallen into spent slumber, I watched his shallow breaths and translucent, sickly pale skin. His bones stood out and his veins formed a blue omen.

He was there, in my arms, and he was dying.

“I am here,” he whispered sleepily when I clutched him closer.

 

I would sail. Artanis would remain. 

“Will you deny me one last night in your arms?” she had asked.

So it was that she had fallen asleep in my hold while I kept vigil. Her heartbeats were irregular and faint mottles marked her skin.

“Celeborn does not deserve you,” I told her before we parted.

“It does not matter.” She smiled wanly. “I love him. What have I condemned him to with that love of mine?”

“You will find peace with him, soon.” My words brooked no doubt. That was what I wanted for her. Peace and a measure of happiness. 

Her eyes turned distant and she nodded noncommittally. 

“What have you seen?” I whispered, taking her shoulders and forcing her to meet my gaze.

Such misery transformed her features that I began to fear for Celeborn. I had seen that expression before, on the countenance of a man I had mourned by a chasm’s edge.

 

There we were, surrounded by fire and the rising seas.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, fear rising in me as the clouds shifted and the shadow of the statue fell upon us once again.

“Here the Broideress stands sentinel,” murmured she. “Here dreams shall not dare tread.”

Her fingers were clutching a silver lock of hair. Her eyes were dark with memories. Her lips voiced silently a name with wistful reverence as once my brother had spoken mine. 

“Artanis!”

And dreams broke me. Blood drenched me, warm and true, and a silent scream escaped her before she whispered with a languid smile, “Atropos.”

I flung my sword away and knelt to scoop her prone form into my arms. My fingers clenched into the rich gold of her hair and they came abandoned with ash streaking them tainted. High flew the ashes with the winds, westward towards the sunset, taking with them all that had been. 

I remained a hollow vessel, empty of life and memory, a statue beside the statue of my cursed grandmother. The winds and the sea roared fury and the fires rose higher. The air brought me harsh striations of the grief of another man, the Prince of Doriath, who had loved my cousin. 

“If I fell,” my brother had whispered once, against my sweat-slicked skin, at a time when he had assumed me asleep after passion’s aftermath. “If I fell, I will claim what I hallowed.”

I had stirred uneasily then and he had dropped a chaste kiss to my shoulder before murmuring, “I am here.”

And the fires claimed me, for it was I that stood hallowed by his fall. I laughed and wept as the flames tore skin from flesh. I felt no pain and I felt no fear as they rose higher and higher, enveloping me in their white embrace. 

“I am here,” whispered each tongue of white flame to me.

Before the sun was swept into the sea, before the last day of this broken, marred world ended and before the old gave away to the new, the flames fulfilled the vow the conjurer had made.

* * *


End file.
